The God Beneath the Sea

by Leon Garfield

  Suddenly a baby cried and a woman’s voice called from within. The grandmother excused herself and left the stranger to drink her fill.

  But Abas stayed.

  ‘If I ruled this house,’ he said, ‘such as you would be drinking from something very different.’

  The strange woman lowered the cup. She stared at the boy. Some grains of barley had caught at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘From the trough,’ sneered Abas. ‘For you drink like a pig.’

  The strange woman’s eyes no longer turned. They were fixed upon Abas. Uneasily, he saw they were indeed golden and dreadfully bright. They dazzled and burned. He licked his lips, which had grown as dry as dust. He couldn’t help himself. His tongue kept flicking in and out.

  Then this woman raised her hand. Abas stared and glared till his eyes bulged from his narrow head. She seemed to be growing taller and taller. She towered into the sky above him. Terrified, he turned to fly into the cottage. But he could not.

  The once humble step rose like a mighty wall above his head. Then he tried to scream. An enormous hammer, shaped like his grandmother’s foot, loomed over him and began to sweep down to crush him flat.

  ‘Go!’ he heard a whisper that yet seemed to fill the universe. ‘Hide your ugly little soul among the crumbling stones! Even the pig trough is too big for you now!’

  So the tiny little creature that had once been the insolent Abas scuttled away, his lips still dry as dust from the heat of great Demeter’s anger. Gentle though her nature was, in that unlucky moment she had become again the daughter of savage Cronus and the sister of unpitying Zeus.

  ‘Have you drunk your fill, my dear?’

  The grandmother smiled and asked the strange tall woman if she needed anything more.

  Then something moved rapidly from just under her foot. She looked down and shuddered with faint disgust as a little spotted lizard, its forked tongue flickering in and out, scuttled away to hide among the cracked pillars and broken stones of the old house.

  ‘Forgive me for leaving you so,’ went on the old woman as the stranger silently bowed her head, ‘but my daughter has a new son and in these times of death and famine . . .’ Her voice drifted into nothingness; then she smiled as if apologising to the stranger for mentioning so commonplace a matter as hunger and suffering. The old woman, whose wrinkled, fading eyes had already seen a lifetime’s losses dwindle into memories, looked up and tried to catch the tall stranger’s eye – as if to share mortality with her.

  ‘You’re welcome to dine with us, my dear. And we can offer shelter for the night. Abas!’ she called abruptly. ‘Abas!’ She looked to the stranger. ‘Did you see the boy go?’

  The woman nodded and started towards the pillared ruin. Her eyes were blazing with uncanny tears.

  Suddenly a chill crossed the grandmother’s heart. She could not account for it; so she said no more and led the stranger inside the cottage.

  The old woman’s daughter lay on a couch made up by the fire. She was pale and thin, but her eyes gleamed warmly in the firelight as she cradled her infant child.

  The tall stranger smiled down on her almost enviously.

  ‘You must understand,’ said the mother, raising her head, ‘that we’ve come down in the world. As you must have seen, the house was once much grander. Indeed, my husband’s family used to be quite important people . . . princes, I think. But times have changed – and what with this terrible famine, we have to live in a way we’re not at all accustomed to.’ The stranger nodded; her smile grew gentler.

  ‘But we’ll make you welcome, nonetheless. Though we are poor, we are still human, you know . . .’

  So the stranger sat by the fire, and while the old woman crept away to prepare a meal, her daughter chattered on of bygone times and family splendours. It seemed she had high hopes of the infant she cradled, and firmly believed he’d restore the glory of their name. Once, she’d had such hopes of her last-born son, Abas – but he lacked gentleness and respect. Her other sons, who in turn had been hoped for, were worthy, but more of farmers than anything else, and had much of the land’s roughness. Even Eubuleus, who’d travelled as far as Sicily to see more of the high-born world, had returned only to write wild poetry and look after swine.

  The mother frowned and sighed. ‘Have you any children?’ she asked abuptly.

  The stranger nodded sadly. ‘A daughter.’

  ‘Grown up and married, I hope? And soon with children of her own?’

  ‘No . . . no. She is young. She is always young.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry. She’ll grow up when the time comes. Where is she now?’

  ‘I am searching for her—’

  At this, the mother fell silent. The strange woman’s words held an aching grief. She stilled her tongue till the meal was brought; and after it, watched the intricate castles in the fire. Now and again, she stole a glance at the stranger and had to admit to herself that the woman, despite her torn gown and wild hair, was more handsome than anyone she’d ever seen. She was thankful her husband was away – else surely he’d have been dazzled by her.

  The grandmother also watched the stranger; but her glances were uneasy; and once, when their eyes met, the old woman grew pale . . .

  ‘Give me the child,’ said the stranger softly. ‘I will nurse him while you go and rest and sleep through the night.’

  The mother was about to protest – when the old woman prevented her. It would be discourteous, she said, to refuse the stranger’s offer . . . and all would benefit from it. Let the stranger nurse the child: her hands were soft and her breast was deep. See – how the little one looked at her! See, see! Already he stretched out his arms! ‘Come, daughter . . . set your heart at rest. No harm will come to the little one!’

  The grandmother took the baby from its mother and gave it into the stranger’s large, fine hands. Then she and her still unwilling daughter retired into another room for the night.

  For a long while, Demeter held the baby in her arms and the firelight seemed to translate both of them into dancing gold. She looked down upon the child’s untroubled face, and her arms tightened round his warm soft limbs. ‘Core . . . Core . . .’ she whispered.

  ‘What was that?’ came the mother’s drowsy voice.

  ‘Nothing, my daughter,’ murmured the old woman. ‘Only the wind in the eaves. Sleep . . . sleep . . .’

  By the fire, the goddess waited . . . waited for the faint sounds from the bedchamber to die away into the gentle murmuring of sleep.

  Then she stood up. ‘Come, little one, even as I punished Abas, so I will reward you for – for the sake of all mothers. You will not die, little one. You and I will conquer the Fates. Come . . . come . . . Demeter will make you immortal.’

  The mother turned and muttered in her sleep. A troubled frown kept brushing across her face like a web. She lifted her hand as if to dispel it. ‘No . . . no . . .’ she mumbled.

  A strange dream had come into her mind. A vision, at first vague and undetermined, of three vast creatures in coarse white robes. Their faces turned this way and that, for they were blind. Then, all three turned full upon the sleeper’s inward eye.

  They laughed – and drew up what seemed to be a strand of wool.

  Then one plucked at it—

  The mother awoke with a cry. There was a sharp pain in her heart. She felt terror. Darkness and silence all round her.

  What was happening by the fire? Her son – her son!

  Trembling, she rose from her bed.

  ‘Sleep – sleep!’ whispered the old woman, and her voice shook as if in mortal terror.

  But love and fear had deafened and blinded the mother to all but her inner ear and eye.

  She pushed open the door. The fire cast a strange wild shadow on the wall. The mother caught her breath. She turned, she stared, she screamed. The terrible stranger was washing her child in the fire. He twisted and turned as the flames licked round his arms and neck, and the points of his eyelashes burned like
tiny scarlet jewels. The woman’s face was smiling with enormous gentleness as she held the infant by his ankle in the very heart of the murderous fire.

  The mother screamed again and flung herself upon the stranger. She touched her, caught at her robe, then fell back in dismay. The woman was looking down at her.

  ‘Do you not know me?’ she murmured.

  Helplessly the mother nodded, and hid her face in the hem of mighty Demeter’s gown.

  ‘I would have made your child immortal,’ whispered the goddess; ‘I would have burned away the last of his mortality. But the Fates sent you in to prevent it . . . Instead, I promise you he will become even greater than your family was in the old days.’ Here the goddess smiled. ‘He will restore your home to more than its former glories.’

  ‘My daughter did not know. Forgive her, forgive her, great goddess!’

  The grandmother was standing in the doorway, her tired old eyes blinking furiously before the radiance of Demeter.

  ‘She has,’ cried the mother, recovering from her awe, and clasping her unharmed son. ‘He will be a king – or a prince, at the very least. Great Demeter promised.’

  The goddess by the fire gazed at the joyful mother and her child and the old woman, who smiled so serenely at her generations. Demeter shook her head. There was laughter where there should have been tears. Though the Fates might cut them off, they could not put them out! What was immortality measured against a crown! Not the gods but Prometheus the Titan had made them; their spirit was not divine, it was Titanic. Now the goddess would be on her way to take up her endless search. The sight of the happy mother and her child opened up afresh the agony of the loss of Core. But they would not let her go. They begged and implored the goddess to stay till the men came back. They were expected directly. They had been out in the woods and fields calling in cattle that had strayed in search of vanished pasture. There would be a feast, as great as could be provided; chairs would be set, even as they were in the old days. Eubuleus would recite his poem. Here the grandmother frowned and looked doubtful, but Demeter laughed and agreed.

  So once again the gleaming lady seated herself in one of the rush-and-pinewood chairs that, as always, were dearer to her than her golden throne on Olympus. And once again, when the men came back from the fields, she sat, a little apart, listening to their tales.

  ‘Go on! Go on!’ the mother kept urging the large, hairy youth who sat at the end of the table in modest shadows. ‘Great Demeter would hear your poem.’

  The youth blushed and bit his lip. He mumbled protestingly that it was not so much a poem as something that had happened to him. He didn’t think that the great goddess wanted to hear how he had lost his pigs.

  ‘Not the pigs,’ said his mother irritably. ‘The part about the black horses and the screaming girl. You remember – the part where you heard the thud and thunder of hooves when you were in the cornfield, and then when you saw those four gigantic black horses rushing down on you, and the golden chariot they were drawing, with the rider all in monstrous black. And, you remember, he had his arm about that beautiful young girl, and she was screaming and crying. And you said the whole earth seemed to split open and all this wild sight dashed down into the darkness. And—’

  ‘—And my pigs went in too,’ said Eubuleus glumly.

  ‘No, not your pigs,’ said his mother. ‘I remember you said that the last thing you saw of them was the girl’s hand outstretched and clutching a bunch of poppies.’

  The goddess by the fire was standing. Her face was pale; her eyes were blazing.

  ‘Where was this cornfield?’

  ‘In Sicily. Just outside a town called Enna.’

  ‘Core!’ screamed the goddess. ‘It was Core!’

  FIFTEEN

  SPRING IN HELL

  Wild of aspect and terrible in her anguish, the great goddess stood before her greater brother on the rocky steeps of high Olympus. The clouds trembled and the stars crept frightened into their holes as Demeter cursed the sky that had looked down on the rape of her child by Hades, hateful god of the dead.

  ‘Nor will I bless the earth again, brother, till Core returns. All will die, mighty Zeus. The rich wide garden will shrivel and crack till Hades inherits it all. Apollo and Artemis will shine on slowly-turning emptiness and death. The bright nymphs and earth-spirits will fly into the void and be lost in eternity. Even Poseidon will raise his trident against you. In all the universe only grim Hades will stretch out his dark hand towards you. I swear it, brother. I swear it by the River Styx.’

  The lord of the sky shuddered and his golden brow grew heavy as Demeter took the oath that none of the gods might break.

  ‘Hades is a great god,’ said Zeus at length, staring down on the bleak, leafless trees and the blind, grey earth. ‘It is no little thing, sister, for our child to be his queen.’

  ‘What has young Core to do with that grim king?’ raged Demeter. ‘What flowers are there in his cold fields; what sun, what air, what light? She loved music, great Zeus. Now she must hear the groans of the damned and the sighs of the forgotten. Is that to be her wedding hymn? She loved the fruits of the earth: what is there now for her wedding feast but the dust of bones?’

  Hot tears ran down Demeter’s cheeks and dropped scalding on the mountain rock. All her immortal beauty was grown stony with misery; even her rich breasts – between which Zeus himself had once laid his head – seemed dry and cold as marble.

  ‘Core – Core!’ she wept. ‘If you are lost to me for ever, what do I care if the universe dies?’

  The father of the gods stared at the tragic goddess and brooded on the calamity of her oath. His gigantic mind stretched itself till it encompassed all teeming creation, reaching into the farthest crannies where secret creatures thought themselves forgotten and unwatched. Then he weighed the tiniest cry against the loudest uproar of storms . . . for everything had its place.

  He called for Hermes, his messenger.

  ‘Go,’ commanded Zeus. ‘Go to my brother Hades and bid him free Persephone. It is my decree. But—’ The lord of the sky frowned as the bright messenger trembled on the air. ‘But if she has tasted of the food of the dead, then she must remain in darkness for ever. This is the decree of the Fates.’

  He turned to the goddess whose eyes were radiant. ‘You have angered them, sister; and they have their powers. Go, Hermes – to the kingdom of the dead.’

  The air grew briefly fiery; the clouds parted – then drifted slowly down the gleaming funnel made by the messenger’s flight, till the print of his staff, his outstretched arms and the curious wings of his sandals dreamed and rolled away . . .

  Hermes took the path that Zeus and his brothers had taken long ago, when they’d freed the ancient prisoners of Tartarus. This was through the grove of black poplars that grew by the ocean. He sped high over the quiet River Styx, flickering in the thick air so that Charon, the fleshless boatman, looked up and wondered at a star so far from the sky. Then, on the farther bank, Cerberus, dread hound of hell, raised its three huge heads, swaying them hither and thither so that its fierce red eyes seemed to smear the night with blood.

  The god flew on, now over the grey spotted Fields of Asphodel where the vague dead rustled like dry, invisible leaves. Beyond, like two tarnished mirrors, lay the pools of Memory and Forgetfulness, partly overhung by thin white trees which nodded as they dropped their bitter berries . . .

  Multitudinous ghosts clustered about them, moving desolately from one to the other as they sought to quench pain with pain.

  The messenger shuddered at the scope of the dark kingdom whose gloomy plains stretched to eternal loneliness. He thought of bright Perse-phone moving across them – and he sped fast and faster yet till he came at last to the palace of Hades, grim counterpart of high Olympus.

  Black and huge it stood before him, wrapped in a brooding silence.

  The ranked pillars of towering jet that guarded the portico suddenly gleamed with tall streaks of silver as the god passed betw
een them. Then they sank into their old blackness: the god was within.

  Down endless corridors Hermes flickered, turning this way and that as sudden walls menaced him with his own shadow and turned his staff into a weapon of snakes.

  Deeper and deeper he pierced into the labyrinth, till the darkness began to burn and glow and the carved cornices were painted with wrinkled gold.

  Little by little the glow grew stronger as the god sped on towards the source of it. Little by little it turned the paved floor into a brazen river that ran between dark golden trees reaching up to a crazed and cracked golden sky from which blind carbuncles, opals and dim grey diamonds stared down like a universe of dead stars.

  Such were the riches of Hades, lord of the dead.

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  Immortal Hermes had entered the presence of the god.

  Vast Hades, crouching on his heavy throne, scowled down at the sleek bright messenger from distant Olympus.

  ‘Yours is a rich kingdom, uncle,’ said Hermes, glancing courteously round at the endless, brooding gold.

  ‘Mine is a lonely kingdom,’ said the god harshly.

  ‘Indeed?’ The god of thieves, drawing designs on the engraved floor with his staff, looked up. ‘I understand that it is not so lonely as it used to be.’

  Hades’ scowl deepened. Savage fires seemed to spring up in the caverns of his eyes.

  ‘The Lady Persephone,’ went on Zeus’s messenger, staring now at the crusted roof, now at the rich carvings that swelled and twisted from the walls till they seemed to drip in a slow metallic torrent. ‘Great Demeter’s child.’

  ‘What do you want? Speak plain; for once.’

  But Hermes was not given to plain speech. He smiled and flickered to the side of the dreadful throne, even overhanging it . . .

  ‘Between you and me, uncle, I understand she is not happy here. They say she grows thin and pale and spends her time in weeping. She will not eat with you . . . Though it’s no affair of mine, Lord Hades, I fancy some nymph or goddess of a more yielding nature than Demeter’s child would make a more agreeable queen.’